Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano lobbied for the DREAM Act Thursday saying immigration enforcement will be improved if Congress approves the bill that would legalize hundreds of thousands of undocumented students brought here illegally by their parents when they were children.

In remarks to reporters from around the country during a conference call from Washington, Napolitano said passage of the DREAM Act would enable DHS to focus more aggressively on deporting foreign criminal convicts.

“It's important to point out that the DREAM Act fits into a larger strategy of immigration enforcement, and would actually complement the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to prioritize our enforcement resources on removing dangerous criminal aliens from the country,” Napolitano said.

If law enforcement were to focus only on "dangerous" immigrants (those violating other people’s individual rights), it would be a crucial component to true immigration reform. When law enforcement harasses nonviolent, productive immigrants and the businesses who wish to employ them, it is both evil and counterproductive. It’s evil because it violates individual rights by barring a non-violent man from becoming a de facto resident and working here, and counterproductive because to deport these people hurts the economy by driving up labor prices at a time when the economy needs more, not less, access to the best labor at the best price.

And when it comes to homeland security, we certainly want the government to protect us, as it rightfully should, from foreign invaders that wish to seek us harm. The vast majority of immigrants to the US do not all into that category and by allowing them to go about their lives, we make it easier for the real criminals to be caught before they do the rest of us any harm.